How in the world can the US regulate the security procedures carried out by foreign flagged carriers and security personnel employed abroad?
On my flight HKG-SFO yesterday(CX), after the gate podium they had 20+ security people doing additional screening in the jetway. It went as follows.. I put my very full backpack on a table and they opened the big compartment only and looked in for a second.
Mrs. Ripper3785 put her roll aboard on the table and they opened it and a guy went through a couple of layers, then zipped it up. I put my roll aboard on the table and a gal opened it to find the most full bag you can imagine. She realized that if she were to go through it at all, that she would disturb the delicate balance that allowed the bag to close. So she looked around the edges, without even prodding in, and then had me close it up. Then I got a pat down where the guy never even touched my back pockets. Not to say anything poorly of HKG security folks, but this is more faux security, ala TSA.
They'd have to have non-TSA US government employed security folks at the origin of all US bound flights to ensure adherence to US security requirements. Hate to think of the cost of that. Think healthcare will be expensive? HA. If the systems had communicated as they should have, then the christmas
attack wouldn't have happened and they wouldn't have enacted all this idiotic procedures that likely still wouldn't thwart a similar attempt.
There's always going to be some hole that is obvious to regular fliers that the gov't doesn't do anything about until it's exploited. Then they change the rules and they don't prevent the same thing from happening again.
They haven't increased security, they've increased inconvenience.